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Citroen Berlingo with Venturi Electric Motor

French La Poste plans to buy 500

French La Poste plans to buy 500

Tomorrow at EVER 2008 (Electric Vehicles and Renewable Energies show) in Monaco, Venturi and PSA Peugeot Citroen will display the first Citroen Berlingo Electric Vehicle. The French postal service, La Poste, has issued a plan to buy 500 Citroen Berlingo's with a Venturi electric engine.

The electric Berlingo will have a range of 100 km, plenty for a daily delivery route in France. Venturi has developed a new and extremely compact power train for the Berlingo, all the new EV components fit into the engine bay.

Peugeot has gone down the electric route before, and now sees new opportunities to relaunch its Electric Vehicle business. Peugeot thinks that electric cars will play a big role in future emission reductions, with sales driven primarily by city delivery vans like the Berlingo.

The electric Berlingo prototype will be on display starting tomorrow in Monaco and will be available for a Ride & Drive on the 28, 29 and 30 at EVER.

Venturi Automobiles and PSA Peugeot Citroën have joined forces to supply electric vans based on the Citroën Berlingo First / Peugeot Partner Origin in response to a tender from the French Post Office, La Poste.

Issued in April 2007, the international tender initially involves the supply of a small number of test vehicles. Following a six-month trial period, during which the vehicles will be thoroughly tested, La Poste will select the supplier of 500 mail delivery vans.

As Venturi Automobiles’ partner, PSA Peugeot Citroën feels that this phase of real-world testing represents a valuable opportunity to fine-tune the technological solutions equipping these delivery vans, to align them seamlessly with La Poste’s expectations.

The Citroën Berlingos / Peugeot Partners will be tested with an entirely new power train proposed by Venturi. This extremely compact technology makes it possible to fit the electric motor, battery and other EV components inside the van’s engine compartment, in lieu of the internal combustion engine. This offers the major advantage of ensuring the same load volume and payload as in a conventional version.

The electric vans will have a range of up to 100 kilometres, which is amply sufficient to cover their mail delivery routes.

Venturi will provide its particularly compact and innovative power train solution, as well as its short-run production capabilities.

The partnership will enable PSA Peugeot Citroën to relaunch its Electric Vehicle business, where it was a pioneer and European market leader, with nearly 10,000 vehicles sold. The Group believes that in the future, electric vehicles will play an important role in reducing automotive emissions, with sales being driven primarily by city delivery vans.

PSA Peugeot Citroën is the world’s leading manufacturer of low-emission vehicles. In 2007, it sold in Europe more than one million vehicles emitting less the 140g of CO2/km. With operations in 150 countries through its Peugeot and Citroën marques, the Group employs more than 200,000 people around the world.

Since 2001, Venturi Automobiles has led a sustained innovation drive that has made it an undisputed leader in electric vehicles. Its expertise in the world’s most advanced EV technological solutions extends from city quad-bikes to high-performance sports cars.

Well, I highly doubt that postal workers need nice rims on their vans...not to mention I'm sure La Poste doesn't exactly want to spend the extra dough. As a matter of fact, Euro vans still look mostly like that, so euro van from the 00's. 100 km is all they need...batteries aren't exactly cheap. In any case, these vehicles aren't really about the "show", just about the utility.